Circle of Desire (27 page)

“I guess there’s that.” He glanced at the zombies again. “I’ll head left, you head right. Hopefully, we’ll meet in the middle.”

“Just remember: those stakes won’t kill zombies.”

“That I’ll remember.” He shoved them through the belt loops of his jeans, gave her a quick, hard kiss that left her lips tingling, then jumped over the wall and ran at the zombies.

They reacted instantly, rushing at him with a deafening roar. She shoved the stake through her belt and followed him out. Two dead men charged at her, bony hands outstretched like claws. She swung and smashed a booted foot into the face of one. The other she hit kinetically, thrusting him back into the pack attacking Ethan, knocking down three of them.

The zombie whose nose she had mashed roared and swung a fist. She swayed out the way, then dropped, sweeping with one leg, knocking the creature off his feet. Then she hit him kinetically, twisting his neck until there was an audible snap. The madmen in her head did a weird little dance, making her eyes water. She blinked away tears and rolled out from under the rush of two more zombies. She jumped to her feet and lashed out at one, her hand smacking into its face. The zombie grunted and bit her palm, teeth tearing at her skin like a dog gnawing a bone. She yelped and punched him hard in the gut with her free hand, but didn’t get any response.

The back of her neck tingled a warning. She twisted, kicking out at the dead man reaching to grab her hair. Her blow cracked against his knee but seemed to do very little damage. She swore and hit him kinetically,
wrapping the energy around his neck, pulling until bone snapped and the zombie dropped.

Which still left the one gnawing on her hand. She reached again for kinetic energy, but it felt as if the madmen were shoving red-hot needles into her brain and all she wanted to do was throw up. And that certainly wouldn’t get rid of the zombie clinging to her flesh. She hit it again, then with as much force as she could muster, lifted her knee and buried it deep in the zombie’s groin. It might be dead but it had once been a man, and its reaction was still instinctive.

The zombie yelled, clutched itself, and dropped like a stone to its knees. She wrapped an arm around its neck and twisted hard. Bone snapped. She released it and swung around.

Ethan stood in a pile of the dead. There were scratches on his face and his shirt was torn, but otherwise, he looked unhurt. She sighed in relief.

His expression was grim when his gaze met hers. “Didn’t you say the soul-sucker will sense their deaths?”

“Yep.” She dragged the stake free of her belt. “And I think you were right before. I think we’re better off getting out of here.”

It was one thing being sore and cold when they had the element of surprise, quite another now that the advantage had slipped the soul-sucker’s way.

He stepped over the dead bodies and held out his hand. “If she’s around, we’ll have to make her believe we don’t think the kids are here.”

She nodded. “We couldn’t fight her in this condition anyway.”

“Especially given the fact you can’t use your kinetic abilities right now.”

She slipped her fingers into his. They felt so warm and solid and right against her own that she felt like hanging on and never letting go. But let go she would when the time came and he still refused to admit the emotions she could see in his eyes.

“How do you know I can’t use kinetic energy?” she asked as he led her into another tunnel that sloped gently downward.

“From the fact that you killed the last zombie with your bare hands.” He hesitated. “And because I can feel just how bad the pain in your head is.”

So the emotion sensing was a two-way deal. She wondered if he realized just how rare it was for two non-telepaths to connect so intimately. Wondered if he’d been able to feel Jacinta’s emotions or read her thoughts. But she couldn’t ask because she’d promised not to, so she simply said, “I’ll be all right once I rest with my herbal pack for a few hours.”

He nodded. The tunnel came to a junction. He hesitated, looking right. She followed his gaze, staring into the darkness and feeling the wisp of evil stirring the air. The soul-sucker was in the shadows, watching them. If they stepped her way, she’d attack. And she wasn’t alone. There was another dead man with her, not a zombie but a vampire, and something else as well.

She squeezed Ethan’s hand, and he looked at her. The grim set of his mouth told her he was aware of those waiting in the darkness.

“The fresh air is coming from this tunnel,” he said, and she knew it was more for the benefit of the watchers than for her.

“Great,” she muttered. “I’ve just about had enough of wet tunnels.”

“There was nothing here to find anyway.”

“No.”

He glanced at her and raised an eyebrow, and she shrugged lightly. If the soul-sucker bought their retreat, then good. If it didn’t, well, hopefully they’d return fast enough that it wouldn’t really matter. And when they came back here, they’d be coming back armed to the teeth. The only problem was the time they were giving the mara to set more traps.

They retreated. Light began filtering into the tunnels, but it got no warmer. Thunder could be heard rumbling and an icy wind whisked around their legs.

They came out of the tunnel onto a ledge. Trees surrounded them, giving little hint as to their location. She shivered and glanced at the sky. The clouds were low, almost seeming to caress the treetops.

“Either we’re about to be hit by the mother of all storms or we’ve come out near the top of the mountain,” she said. “I didn’t think we walked that far.”

“The darkness can be deceiving. I just hope we get down to the car before the storm breaks.”

She grunted in agreement and glanced behind her, staring at the tunnel’s entrance as Ethan led her away. Fear rose, threatening to engulf her. Evil was gathering its forces in the darkness. If they got down this mountain without being attacked, they’d be lucky.

If they survived until night, it would be a damn miracle.

So why had they been allowed to walk free? The soul-sucker surely would have realized the zombies’ attack had weakened them. It didn’t make any sense
to simply sit back and leave the attack until later when they had the upper hand right now.

“It makes a little more sense once you know we’re being followed,” Ethan murmured.

She resisted the urge to look behind them again. “By what?”

“It smelled like a wolf when I first sensed it, but it took off into the sky not long afterward.”

“A dual-shifter,” she murmured. “That’s rare.”

“Rare or not, it’s probably going to follow us right back to the cabins.”

“The soul-sucker must realize we’re not working alone.”

“I believe it was you who said it wasn’t stupid.”

“We can’t go back.” They’d lead them straight to Gwen, and while her grandmother could look after herself, she was their trump card and the one person they could not risk exposing. Not yet, anyway.

“There’s a motel up near the main highway. We’ll head there and call your grandmother.”

She nodded. Once the attack had hit, it should be fairly safe to go back. If they both survived the attack, that was.

She tried not to think about how tired she felt. How cold she was. How bad her head hurt. Tried not to think about facing the oncoming attack with little more than stakes, silver chains, and the protection stones.

Because right now she was more frightened than she’d ever been in her life.

But why?

She frowned as she continued following Ethan down the steep slope. She’d certainly been in far worse situations
than this before. If Gran and she could survive a mass attack of demons, as they had in Seattle a few years back, then surely Ethan and she could survive the attack of a couple of vampires and shape-shifters. If that was all the soul-sucker sent at them, of course.

Then it hit her.

For the first time in her life, she had something more to lose than just
her
life. There was a very real possibility that Ethan and she had created a life last night, and it was not giving that child a chance that she feared more than anything.

She lightly touched her stomach. She had to survive, not only tonight, but this whole damn case. The child she carried might be the only good thing to come out of her brief time with Ethan, and she sure as hell was going to make sure they both survived. Because even though she now had something to lose, she also had an extraordinary reason to survive.

They came out of the trees, and she glanced skyward. A solitary bird flew high up, a dark form almost lost against the deeper darkness of the clouds. It was circling, and she had no doubt it was the shifter Ethan had sensed in the tunnel. Given the strength of the approaching storm, most birds worth their salt would be seeking sanctuary right now, not riding the blustery wind.

The storm hit before they reached the car. Not that it really mattered, since she was already soaked and chilled to the bone. Ethan turned the car’s heater up to full, but it didn’t seem to help melt the ice that had settled deep into her bones.

“We’ll be at the motel soon,” he said, concern in
his eyes as he glanced at her. “You can have a hot shower there.”

She nodded and wondered why he wasn’t shaking with cold himself. He was as soaked as she was.

“Werewolves have a strong constitution. The cold has never really worried me.”

She studied him for a moment, wondering why he was catching some thoughts and not others. He surely wouldn’t be sitting there worrying about her being cold if he knew she could be carrying his child. Or was it simply a matter of neither of them being ready—or willing—to push any deeper than surface thoughts?

“So there are some good points about being a werewolf, after all?”

His gaze returned to the road. “Perhaps.”

She studied his profile and saw the tension around the corners of his eyes. In the firm set of his full lips. “Why would one woman’s reaction set you so against what you are?”

“I loved that woman.” His voice was tight. Angry. At her, at the past.

“But unless you were born and raised in a wolf community, you must have witnessed or experienced such a reaction before. You must have been aware it was a possibility.”

God, she’d certainly experienced it. And while a lover’s reaction of horror and fear was both disappointing and upsetting, it was also to be expected. It was human nature to fear what you could not understand, and those who were more than human had to accept that and deal with it.

Only Ethan’s way of dealing with it had been to
deny that part of himself. And that couldn’t be healthy in the long run.

“It wasn’t just her reaction. It was what she did—” He bit the words off and gave her a hostile look. “I thought we agreed not to talk about this anymore.”

She sighed. “We did. But I’m a nosy bitch, just like my grandmother.”

“Then I’ll tell you what I told your grandmother. Stop trying to understand me, because once this case is solved, I’m out of here.”

If I don’t understand what makes you tick, what the hell am I going to tell our child when it asks about you?
She swallowed the thought and the rising tide of anger, and looked away. “I know you’re out of here,” she replied, keeping her voice even. “You keep telling me that at every opportunity. But that doesn’t stop me from being curious.”

His anger, frustration, and hurt swam around her, an emotive swirl that brought tears to her eyes. What on earth had this woman said or done … the thought faded. She remembered him stating that no child of his was ever going to face what he’d had to face. Combine that with what he’d said only moments before—that it was what she did more than what she’d said—and the final piece of the jigsaw finally fell into place. Horror snatched her breath, and for several seconds she could only stare at him.

He glanced at her. “What?”

“She was pregnant, wasn’t she?”

His knuckles went white against the steering wheel. He took a deep breath, then ground out in a raw voice, “Yes.” There were some wounds that time never healed, and the loss of a child was one of them.

She placed a hand on his arm, feeling the tension under her fingertips.

He shook off her touch almost angrily. “Maybe now you’ll understand why I didn’t want to talk about it.”

All she could understand was that by refusing to accept what had happened, he was keeping the pain of that night alive and festering deep in his soul. She didn’t expect him to forget, because something like that you could never forget, but acceptance was vital if he was ever to move on with his life.

“Did she abort the child?”

“No.” He took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “She said she didn’t want the child of a monster in her body any longer than necessary and threw herself down the stairs.”

“And it worked?”

A muscle in his cheek pulsed as he battled to not show the torment she could feel through every pore.

“I rushed her to the hospital. She told the doctors I pushed her.”

“Were you charged?”

“No. While accusing me, she accidentally let the truth of what had happened slip out.”

“And she lost the child?”

“Yes.”

She touched his arm again. This time he didn’t shake it off, but he was no more relaxed than before. “Just because Jacinta reacted that way doesn’t mean every woman would.”

His laugh was a short, harsh sound that hurt her ears. “If the woman I loved couldn’t accept what I
was, what hope is there of any other woman accepting it?”

I accept it
. But he didn’t want to hear that. Might never be ready to hear it if he couldn’t see beyond the pain of that night. “The question is, did she love you?”

His gaze stabbed hers. “She carried my child. We were going to get married.”

“That doesn’t mean she loved you.”

“Maybe in your free-and-easy world it doesn’t, but in mine, that suggests love.”

His words knifed right through her. In two simple words he’d summed up what he thought of her. But she’d never been particularly free or
easy
, despite the fact that she’d had more than a couple of lovers. Nor had she ever been inclined to give in to lust and go to bed with a man just for sex. Until Ethan.